


Home at last

by Multifandom_damnation



Category: IT (Movies - Muschietti)
Genre: Childhood Friends, Childhood Trauma, Dialogue Heavy, Dreams and Nightmares, Drinking & Talking, Established Ben Hanscom/Beverly Marsh, Gen, Heart-to-Heart, Minor Ben Hanscom/Beverly Marsh, Post-IT Chapter Two (2019), Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Psychological Trauma, Sad Bill Denbrough
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-11
Updated: 2020-06-11
Packaged: 2021-03-04 02:26:51
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,666
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24656071
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Multifandom_damnation/pseuds/Multifandom_damnation
Summary: Almost every night since Derry, Ben woke up to the indescribable pain of letters being carved into his abdomen, the cool steel of the blade gliding crudely against his skin and drawing blood in a way that made Ben’s eyes snap open and a scream escape his lips before he could stop it, caught in a moment of excruciating pain, of fearful familiarity, of the sight of the clown in the mirror, It's arms wrapped around his shoulders, It's long nails digging into his scalp.Bev suggested that Bill might help with that, but though Ben was trepidatious and uncertain, he agreed and didn't regret the suggestion for a second.
Relationships: Bill Denbrough & Ben Hanscom
Comments: 4
Kudos: 12





	Home at last

**Author's Note:**

> I finally watched IT chap2 the other day, and even though I HATE horror (I fast-forwarded by the worst bits, like the beginning with the hate crime on that poor couple where Pennywise got him and then the introduction of Hockstetter in the hospital). But it was a really good movie and I loved the cast too. The characters are so good. I'm glad that I watched it despite my trepidation. 
> 
> I had seen the scene with spider stan on youtube, but I had never seen the bit with Ben where Pennywise was literally carving into his stomach???? Like?? That shit was fucking crazy, and the acting was so damn good from everyone involved?? How Ben was almost unconscious from the pain and was literally lost in his own little world and how everyone ran to grab him and hold him while it happened??? Holy fuck, I love that shit. In case you hadn't noticed, my favourites are Ben and Bill, and there's literally NO fics about the two of them in any way, shape or form?? Like, what the hell IT fandom??? I need to fix that immediately. Rarepair anyone?? Platonically, of course. 
> 
> But, I don't know why, but I like the idea of everyone moving back to Derry and having their own little community so they can all hang out all the time?? Idk. Maybe that's weird, but almost as a way of facing their trauma together, now that the clown is dead and they're all happy with each other and have everyone together as support? Imagine them living a stone's throw from each other, visiting with gifts and home-made food and going on lunch dates and coming over whenever someone has a bad day and needs help?? I just really love that idea, and it might not be realistic, but a gal can dream, right??? Right???
> 
> I was really proud of this fic until the introduction of Bill, and then it just slowly went downhill from there. I'm not TOTALLY happy with this fic, but you know what??? All things considering, I'm actually surprised that it's as nice as it is. I think my main problem was that I was trying to fit too many things in the fic, and then it just got too long, and then I couldn't fix it, you know?? I don't know. Anyway, despite its flaws, I really hope you enjoy this and hope you like it as much as I do in the end x

Almost every night since Derry, Ben woke up to the indescribable pain of letters being carved into his abdomen, the cool steel of the blade gliding crudely against his skin and drawing blood in a way that made Ben’s eyes snap open and a scream escape his lips before he could stop it, caught in a moment of excruciating pain, of fearful familiarity, of the sight of the clown in the mirror, It's arms wrapped around his shoulders, It's long nails digging into his scalp. 

Beverly, always right beside him in every way since the clown, would wake up and soothe him, would promise him that the clown was gone, would remind him where he was, would whisper kind words and sweet nothings into his skin as she rested one gentle hand over where the words were once carved in Pennywise’s child-like script across his stomach, her head buried in the crook of his neck, her voice muffled slightly by his sweat-slick skin, while he panted and stared at the ceiling and tried to blink away the pain that crawled up into the back of his throat like bile.

It was her idea, on the third month in and almost every consecutive night, that he go visit Bill back in Derry, in Bill’s childhood home, with the dark exterior and double story and the memories inside that nobody dared to touch, much less Bill himself. “Derry?” Ben had repeated as he held her to his chest, his hands gripping her hair like a life-raft in a storm. “Why would I go back to Derry? We just finally escaped that place. Why would I want to go back?”

“Because you’re going through a lot,” Bev’s voice had been gentle, understanding, sweet. Ben felt something clench in his chest. “It’s not good. I don’t like seeing you like this. And you and I both know, that if there’s one person who knows what you’re going through right now and probably knows how to help you, it’s Bill.”

Unable to find any fault in her logic, he had packed a bag at her insistence and travelled the short trip to Derry, a promise that he would call her when he got there, and that he would be home soon. “Not too soon, I hope,” she had laughed when he lingered on the doorstep, her hands on either side of his face. “Bill needs the company.”

Which Ben knew was true. Last time he heard, Bill hadn’t spoken to his wife since before he returned to Derry with the rest of them, and the split was implied for both of them. Ben hadn't seen a wedding ring on his finger last time they met. Bill’s latest adaption had continued on without his ending, and it was a critically acclaimed movie, with Bill’s name barely in the by-line, despite it being his story save for the last five minutes. Audra’s acting career had taken off, and Bill was still struggling to write his latest book. Mike had left Derry for the first time and was probably never going back, so Bill had moved back into his childhood house once the previous owner’s son had died and lived in a town with nobody for company but his words and his thoughts. 

They said that writing was a lonely profession, but Ben didn’t think that it was supposed to get so bad.

So that was how he found himself standing on Bill’s doorstep in the mid-afternoon sunshine with two bags at his side and a nervous smile on his face. He hadn’t seen Bill since It happened, and they hadn’t spoken other than the occasional phone call and the more often text. Not even a video call, like they’d done with Richie and Mike. It was weird when he thought about it, but Bill just didn’t strike him as the person who would be comfortable on camera. He wrote the stories, not stared in them. And there was no stuttering over text.

It was weird to be standing here. The door had been re-painted, but there were still the little nicks in the wood where Bill had accidentally hit it with his bike as a kid. His and Georgie’s names were still carved into the windowsill on the outside of the house, covered in dust and webs. The letterbox was still the same, though on its surface was nothing but the house number and not the cursive handwriting of Bill’s mother that spelled out the families name. It was the same house, but different in so many ways that it was almost unrecognizable. 

He knocked on the front door, and after a couple of minutes and a whole lot of frustrated muttering through the door, it was opened to reveal a dishevelled looking Bill, blinking at the sudden sunlight, staring at Ben like he was looking at a newly-risen ghost. “Oh, Ben. Hi. I got the c-call from Bev this morning. I honestly didn’t think that you’d be arriving so s-soon.”

“Yeah, well, I needed the trip,” Ben said as Bill let him into the house. “You look like shit.”

“You look like you need a drink.”

“So do you.”

Chuckling, Bill led Ben through the dimly lit house and into the kitchen, where the remnants of the dishes were waiting. He took Ben’s bag from him with one hand and took two beers out of the fridge with the other, muttering under his breath about writing a shopping list. “Sorry,” Ben apologized, gesturing with his free hand at the stack of dishes in the sink, a couple of days worth by the looks of it, and couldn’t help but wonder how often these things got done. “I interrupted your lunch.”

“I ate hours ago,” Bill replied easily as he escorted Ben out of the room. “And those dishes aren’t g-going anywhere. They’ve been there for a while, they can wait a bit l-longer.”

Ben didn’t know how to argue with that, so he didn’t, and he let Bill take his other bag and place them both out of sight. Ben thought the room might have once been Bill’s mother’s craft room, where she would store her needles and threads and fabrics and sewing machines, but now it was barren, an old memory of what once was, just like the rest of the house.

When they were finally seated at the table, open beers resting between them like a stalemate, waiting for the first one to break and tip the neck of the bottle back and shut their eyes against the memories, Bill waited, and Ben spoke. “I’m guessing that Bev already told you why I’m here.”

“She didn’t actually,” Bill replied, and Ben couldn’t hide his surprise in time. “She said something about it being y-your story to tell, and that she sent you here as if I could h-help you. I need to be honest, I don’t know why she thinks that, but I’m happy to l-listen to whatever you have to say. I… assume you want to talk?”

“Yeah,” Ben ran a hand over the back of his neck, his throat suddenly constricting, his heart beating faster than they had the right to. He was afraid, but he wasn’t sure why. “Uh…”

He couldn’t start, but that didn’t matter, because Bill was Bill and he always knew what Ben was going to say and what he needed even if Ben himself had no idea. “It’s about the c-clown, isn’t it?” Bill asked. “I think we all still dream about the clown. Is it what he showed you? The v-vision?”

“You had a vision too?”

“Yeah. It wasn’t fun.”

Something on Bill’s face gave the impression that maybe now wasn’t the right time to push it, but Ben filed that away for later. “It’s not the vision. I was pretty much with Bev the whole time back there, and she literally saved my life. No, uh, it’s something that happened when we were separated in the Neibolt house.”

Bill raised an eyebrow as he reached for his beer, and Ben reached for his soon after, relieved that Bill had given him some sort of silent permission that he thought he needed but didn’t really. “Which time? I hardly saw you.”

“When you guys were fighting that spider thing that looked like Stan,” Ben said. “And me, Bev and Mike couldn’t get to you.”

“Oh, right,” Bill frowned, and his nose scrunted up in the way Ben remembered and his eyebrows were pulled together low over his eyes like they always used to and his lips contorted into a grimace that was as familiar to Ben as his reflection in the mirror. How the hell could Ben ever forget him? It had taken a long time to realize how much he had missed him all his life. “You were s-screaming. We were trying to get to you, but the d-door shut and we couldn’t open it. What happened to you?”

Subconsciously, Ben felt his hand travel down his chest and rest on his abdomen where the words were carved, and the pain, tortuous and excruciating, came back to him all at once, and he found his lungs suddenly without air, his mouth suddenly too dry to speak, and he snaked his hand under his shirt to rest right against the skin, where the only scar that remained of Derry was the ‘H’ carved when he was just a child who was afraid of everything and nothing all at once. Bill tracked the movement with silent attention and watched as Ben fought for air, stared off into the distance at something invisible. He didn’t say anything and just sipped quietly at his drink so he didn’t feel quite so invasive. 

“Do you remember when we were kids, and Bowers tried to carve his name into my stomach at the Kissing Bridge ?” Ben asked eventually, voice not at all how he wanted it to sound.

“Yeah,” Bill replied. “I wanted to kill him. Almost did, too.”

His fingers trailed down to the single letter scared forever into his flesh, the scar he had wondered for 27 years how he got it until he returned to Derry and it all came back like a slap in the face. “Well, uh Pennywise-  _ It _ , got to us before it got to you, I think, in person. He retraced the scar that Bowers made, but he also uh… he added his own personal flavour to it. I don’t think… it hurt more than anything I’ve ever felt, Bill. If it wasn’t for Mike and Bev, I’m not sure I would have been able to cope.”

“What did It do?”

“It just carved a sentence.”

“A whole sentence? What did It say?”

Ben faltered, though he didn’t know why. It wasn’t the kind of thing he could ever just forget. “‘Home at last’.”

Snorting, Bill took another sip of his beer, and Ben took the opportunity to do the same. The coolness was nice against his throat, and his mouth didn’t feel so dry. “It’d been waiting 27 years to make that f-fucking joke,” Bill looked cautiously at where Ben had his hand resting protectively over his abdomen. “Did it leave a…?”

“No,” Ben shook his head. “You know Pennywise and his tricks. It was there and it was real and there was blood but then… It didn’t even leave a scar. Not even on my neck, you know. I wake up screaming because of the pain, but there’s never anything there to justify it. I always feel like I’m just imagining it, like when amputees feel pain in a limb that’s no longer there.”

“Phantom itch,” Bill nodded. “I get that. But you’re n-neck?”

“Yeah. It tried to get me up there too, but Bev stopped it before it went too far though.”

Humming, Bill ran his finger over the lip of the bottle, his finger sliding easily over the smooth surface. “Fucking c-clown,” he said.

Ben held up his bottle, and Bill clashed it with his own. “Fucking clown,” They settled back into easy silence for a moment, just enjoying each others company after 27 years of not knowing the other even existed, before Ben couldn’t take it any more and broke the silence. “How did you do it?”

Frowning again, Bill blinked at him as he sat back in his chair. “Do what?”

Suddenly uncomfortable, Ben also sat back in his seat and gestured vaguely at Bill, at the house, and the dishevelled and honestly sad way that Bill was dressed as if he hadn’t bothered to look in the mirror to get ready this morning. “You know. Deal with it all. Even from the start, way back when we were kids, Pennywise always wanted you. It wanted your brother, It wanted your house, It wanted your pain more than it wanted ours. And you dealt with that. You put up with it for years until you forgot, and then you came back and remembered, and you put up with it again. How did you do that?”

Bill’s expression suddenly grew sombre, and his eyes dropped to stare at the tabletop, shoulders slumped, mouth contorted into a thin line, an air of absolute sadness falling over him like a weighted blanket. “It wasn’t just me. We a-all went through some shit back then.”

“Yeah,” Ben continued. “But we all know that you went through the worst. It took your _brother_ , for god’s sake, Bill. None of us… it didn’t do that kind of shit to us. Yeah, it broke Eddie’s arm, and yeah, it nearly bit Stan’s face off, but you stopped it from ever going too far. Those things can heal. Death, not so much.”

They sat in silence for a moment, Ben watching Bill staring off into the distance, drowning in memories that they both wanted to forget now that they remembered them. “I’m glad that it was me and not you guys. That’s something I can take solace in, at least.”

“Bill-”

“It’s always been my fault that all this has happened. I faked being sick so I didn’t have to play with Georgie, and because I wasn’t there, It got him, and everything went to shit from there.”

“You don’t know that it was your fault. I know you’ve got this stupid guilt complex, Bill, but you have no idea that everything that happened had anything to do with you.”

“It told me,” Bill said abruptly and Ben felt something immovable lodge in this throat. “I went back there, to the storm drain. More time’s than I could count. I asked It why It took G-Georgie, out of all the kids in Derry It could have taken. Do you know what It told me? ‘Because y-you weren’t there.’ And it’s true. I wasn’t there to look after him. If I had been, maybe things would have been different. Maybe if it had taken me instead, nobody else would have gotten hurt.”

Ben felt like he was falling, the chair sinking out from under him and the ground opening into a gaping canyon laden with barbed wire and sharp spikes and impossible pain at the bottom. Bill looked like he was being to be sick, and honestly, Ben felt the same way. “You went looking for It? You went back to the storm drain to talk to It? Bill, what the hell were you thinking?”

“I was t-thinking that I needed to know if there was anything I could have done to c-change the outcome. I needed to know if it was m-my fault. If I had been there, It would have taken me, and everything would have been a-alright.” Ben was surprised to hear the jaded edge to Bill’s words, but the longer he looked at his face, and the distant look in his eyes, he realized that the bitterness was directed more at himself than it was at Ben. And while it didn’t make him feel any better about it, it did relive him of any guilt.

“It wouldn’t have changed anything,” Ben tried. This wasn’t how he had expected this conversation to go, but he should have known that Bill would have blamed himself for something he wasn’t even aware of, wasn’t even there for. “Your parents still would have looked for you,  _ we  _ would have looked.”

Bill shook his head. “No. I mean, my parents… they tried. But you didn’t need to have eyes to see that Georgie had always been their favourite. When Georgie died, it broke them. If the roles had been reversed, and it as m-me that went missing and died, they probably wouldn’t have looked as hard. Georgie would have broken, but they would have moved on pretty q-quick. It’s taken a long time for me to accept it, but now I realize that my parents were a little bit…”

He struggled for the right word, the letters stuck in his throat like an escalating traffic jam, frustration dotting his features as he fought for it, and Ben helped him out. “Neglectful?” he tried, and Bill looked relieved. “Absent? Unloving?”

“Yeah,” Bill said. Ben had been waiting for this moment to come for a long time, and he knew the words to say even if Bill didn't. “Those.”

Ben didn’t know what to say, so he tried to bring it back to the original topic. “So how did you deal with it? I don’t know how you could have.”

Sighing, Bill held up his now empty beer bottle and swung it back and forth between his fingers. “Now? The same way the rest of you do. Drink too much, smoke too much, sleep too little, throw myself into my work even if it’s shit because at least I’m doing something to take my mind off of what I could be doing. Back then? I’ve never been too sure how I managed it. I didn’t for a long time. All I wanted to do was get G-Georgie back, even when I knew that he was probably dead. But I think that when we finally m-moved away, and I started to forget, that’s when I felt better. I still can’t believe I forgot my own brother for 27 years. But it’s true. Nothing really helps. You just learn to live with it and deal with it, until you can’t anymore. You let it hurt until it can't h-hurt you any more. You have to let yourself go numb, and you deal with it the only way how. But not having to feel it, not feeling anything at all... I wouldn't recommend it to y-you. You of all people.”

Ben didn’t know how to answer that. “Wow,” he said. “I’m no Richie, but that was really fucking morbid.”

“I don’t know why Bev thought I could help. I’m probably the last person you should talk to if you wanted any kind of t-therapy,” Bill said. “But I’m a good listener, considering my whole life is about sitting in a silent room for hours,” he tried for a smile, but it fell short. “It’s good that you wake up screaming. If it’s p-pain you feel, then it’s good. It means that you can still feel anything at all. But if you dream about the c-clown, and the rain, and the red balloons, and feel fear and emptiness, that’s when you know you’re f-fucked. But waking up to the pain you feel? All things considered, that’s pretty fucking lucky.”

Ben eyed him wearily over his bottle. “Is that how you feel? Do you dream about the clown and feel emptiness and fear?”

There was an expression on Bill’s face that Ben couldn’t identify, but it worried him all the same, like a gaping hole in the middle of his chest. “You could say that. Yes and no. Sometimes I just… well. It doesn’t m-matter. I don’t sleep much. I’m too busy. There are only so many hours left in a d-day.”

This time, Ben couldn’t help but laugh. A brittle laugh, too sharp and too fake to be considered humorous. “Look at us. Can you believe that this is the positive outcome? Two grown men too afraid to sleep and who wake up screaming about a fucking clown? This is what we are now? This is what we have to live with?”

“We’re the lucky ones. You, me, Bev, Mike. We’re lucky,” Bill said, and Ben knew what he meant. A sad, distant look crossed Bill’s face. “I told you all not to follow me into that house. B-begged you. I told you what would happen. You didn’t listen.”

“We weren’t going to let you go in there and get yourself killed just because you have a horrible self-sacrificing issue and blame yourself for every sin in the world,” Ben argued. Bill flinched.

“Look what happened,” Bill said solemnly, and Ben had to shut his eyes tight against the honestly because he knew that Bill was true. That didn’t make it right, but it was true. “You should have listened.”

Somehow, they ended up lying flat on their backs on Bill’s bed, basking in the sun streaming in through the open window, three whiskies deep, a familiar, comforting buzz settling into their bones as their bodies absorbed the alcohol they probably shouldn’t have drunk.

“What do you do for fun around here?” Ben asked. “Derry’s always been a shit-hole, even more so when you’re an adult.”

“I don’t do much. I don’t really l-leave the house unless I n-need to,” Bill said. “But yesterday, I found myself missing S-Stan, so I went to the park. You remember the one with the creepy lumberjack statue? I just sat on the park bench in the sun for a while.”

“And what did you do? Just sat there?”

“I watched the birds. Stan always loved birds and all the different types. I just sat there and watched them for a while. I miss him. It’s hard to miss someone that’s n-never coming back.”

Ben hummed. It was nice, sitting here with Bill, just the two of him. Bill had always been the so-called leader of the Losers, though he was more like a big brother than anything else. Ben had always looked up to him. He had never expected for them to end up like this though. “What made you move back here anyway? Buy your childhood home and come back?’

“I don’t know,” Bill admitted. “When I saw it the first time we came back, it was like a slap in the face. But then I thought about G-Georgie, and how our names were carved into the windowpanes and how his things were still in the basement and what his bedroom used to look like, and I realized that, despite e-everything that’s happened, I would move back in an instant. When that boy died at the carnival, his family packed their bags and got the hell out of dodge just after everything settled down. I knew they would. My family did the same thing after G-Gorgie. I was waiting for it, and when it happened, I just brought it. It’s nice. After being away for 27 years, it’s nice to r-remember.”

Ben couldn’t fathom going back to his childhood home. Though he loved his mother, there wasn’t much that his old home had offered him. He had packed all his books with him when they moved away, so he didn’t have those to go back to, and when his childhood home was still his home, Ben’s most prized possession was his six best friends, and he couldn’t exactly take them with him. All the notebooks filled with his poetry and sketched of buildings came with him. There had never been anything for him in that house, even when he had lived in it. The clubhouse underground, with the rickey wooden supports and too many nails and the beams that moved when you touched them and the dusty hammock and Stan’s hairnets in the ugly patterns- that was more his home than his house was. 

“Do you ever get lonely?” Ben asked. “I know I would. I couldn’t imagine spending the rest of my life here without anyone to talk to.”

“I mean, not as lonely as Mikey was. 27 years is a long time with nobody but books and the crazy idea of the c-clown for company,” Bill laughed. “But yeah. It does get a little lonely. But I’m used to it by now. Writing isn’t known to be a very collaborative profession. Even when I was still with Audra, I was still alone most of the time. But now at least I’m alone without the lie of living with someone who didn’t really love me. I’d rather be alone on purpose than alone in a cold house with a woman who can’t really stand me.”

“I get that,” Ben said. Because, really, he did. Architecture was an amazing occupation, his dream job since he was a kid and built a club-house under the ground with bits and pieces he found around town and it managed to stay intact for 27 years, but it was lonely. He didn’t have many friends, too busy with the job, and relationships were hard to come by. He couldn’t imagine going back to that way of life again.

Grinning, Bill reached over and slapped Ben on the chest. “I can’t believe that all my friends are b-big shots. You own your own architect firm and make amazing buildings. Bev owns a famous clothing line. Richie’s a high-end comedian. You all did alright for y-yourselves.”

Snorting, Ben stretched out across the bed, basking like a cat with his belly in the air. “What about you? Famous author, couple of well-acclaimed movies. Looks like you can certainly make a big splash in the entertainment industry, huh?”

“Yeah,” Bill grumbled. “People enjoy it up until the final chapter or two, and then they complain about the e-ending, and people who pick up the books to make movies expect me to re-write the way it ends at the last minute. As if they don’t u-understand that writing a whole new c-chapter takes a lot of time and planning. I had to meticulously plan out the whole book over a year- the end chapter isn’t any d-different.”

“How _have_ your books been going?” Ben asked. “Have you written any new ones lately?”

Bill waved a vague hand over in the corner to a shoebox with an open lid, and when Ben craned his neck off the bed to glance at it, he could just see lines bold text on a stack of paper, tied up with twine. “I’ve had my latest manuscript written for a couple of months. I’ve been meaning to send it out to all of you, but I haven’t had the time.”

“What?”

“Well, I want your appraisal. Your critique. All of you L-Losers,” Bill shrugged, shoulders never leaving the bed. “I want you guys to tell me if my ending is shit or not before I send it out and have professionals tell me it’s shit. You’re always honest with me. And you could probably write a whole new final c-chapter. You’re all talented.”

“You’re giving us your manuscripts?”

“Yeah. I haven’t had an editor in years. It’d be nice for someone to read my work before I send it to be b-butchered. You fuckers g-get first dibs.”

“You shouldn’t have gone through all that trouble. I’ll build you a house or something as thanks.”

“It better be a real nice fucking house.”

But then Ben couldn’t help but laugh at that because he knew that Bill couldn’t give a fuck about a house, and was just happy to have someone read his books and who wouldn’t blow smoke up his ass and kick him while he was down, and Ben loved him for it, because all Bill had ever wanted was to have friends and to take care of his loved ones and to make people happy, and all he got in return was a dead brother and a fractured family and trauma that he carried with him all the way into his thirties.

Suddenly, Ben was laughing so hard that he couldn’t stop, a deep belly-ache that rocked through his whole body and the pain in his abdomen changed from the sharp carving of the blade against his skin to a familiar, comforting feeling that he hadn’t experienced since childhood. Maybe it was the three glasses of whisky and bottle of beer that was now settling heavily on their bones, or maybe it the slowly setting sun warming them from the outside in and painting the room in reds and oranges and purples, or maybe it was the way they titled their heads on the bed to look at each other with haunted yet loving eyes, full of emotion and kindness and passion, but then Bill was laughing too, and as the was setting and their bodies hurt and throbbed from all the laughing, and they were happily exhausted, and for the first time in a long time, Ben didn’t think about the words carved into his abdomen. He just thought about Bill, his childhood friend, the leader, the guy he always looked up to, his brother, sitting so close that Ben could touch him. It had been a long 27 years that Ben hadn’t even known had pained him.

“You know,” Bill broke the silence. “Out of everyone Bev could have ended up with, I’m glad that it was y-you.”

That took Ben off guard a little bit, and he didn’t know how to reply, even though he opened his mouth again and again. Bill looked at him with a knowing expression, as if he knew what it was like to want to say something and have nothing come out. Which he did. “Oh,” he managed. “Thanks, Bill.”

“Losers stick together,” Bill said like it was the simplest thing in the world. And maybe, when Ben really thought about it, it was.

“I should probably get going,” Ben tried eventually, sounding half-hearted even to his own eyes. “I haven’t even checked into the Inn yet, and we know that being outside at nighttime in Derry is never a good idea, even with the clown dead.”

Bill sat up from the bed, rubbing at his head and fixing his hair and leaning on his arm behind him on the matrice. “Don’t be stupid. You’re staying here. I’ve got plenty of room. It’s only m-me. What’s the point of owning a house in Derry if your f-friends don’t stay here when they v-visit?”

“Bill-”

“I have the room,” Bill said. “Don’t be stupid.”

And that was that.

Ben slept in Bill’s room, despite Ben’s insistence that he could take the couch, and they had argued, mostly on Ben’s part, until the sun finally set, and Bill left him behind the closed door with his bags and his thoughts. Ben spent the night in a room that wasn’t his, in a bed that belonged to one of his best friends, and didn’t dream about the clown or the dark damp or the well, and didn’t wake up screaming a single time, and for the first time in months, the words carved into his stomach was nothing more than a dull stinging than the insurmountable agony that they once were. He slept soundly, and even the faint rain from the outside didn’t wake him.

The next morning, he pretended not to notice Bill lounging on the couch in his plaid pyjamas, surrounded in blankets and pillows with a book in one hand and a steaming cup of coffee in the other, looking as if he had just woken up. There was another cup of coffee on the kitchen counter, exactly how Ben liked it. The dishes in the skin were still untouched.

When Ben finally dug up the courage to say goodbye, they wrapped each other in a warm hug, an embrace that probably lasted longer than was necessary- heads in crooks of necks and hands thumping shoulders and arms tightening and loving words muttered against skin. Ben never wanted to let go for a second time, and it seemed like Bill didn’t either, but eventually, Bill led him outside and watched him get into his car and leave, disappearing into the distance and exiting Derry for another time.

Bev was waiting for him when he returned to their home, dropping his bags on the ground and opening his arms as he awaited her embrace. “How was it?” she muttered when he slowly wrapped his arms around her again.

“Exhausting. Mentally and emotionally exhausting. But it was nice too,” Ben admitted. “I think it was a good idea, going back there so soon. I’m glad I listened to you. I had the best night sleep I had in months.”

“And Bill?”

“He seems fine. Utterly broken and an absolute mess, but that’s Bill for you,” Ben replied. “Missing us, I think. He must be lonely down there. I know what that’s like.”

“Maybe we can go back and visit him some time. All of us,” Bev ran her hand over his arm until she could lace her fingers in his. “But now, are you alright? Feeling any better?”

Ben nodded. It was like a weight had been lifted off his shoulders. “Yeah, actually. Much better. I’m glad I went.”

Bev smiled, and it made her whole face light up, “Good. That’s good. Does that mean you’re ready for a little welcome home dinner-date? I’ve got wine, and a movie set up. Food’s on the way. If you’re feeling up for it.”

“I’d love that,” Ben placed a kiss on her crown. “I’m going to be honest with you, Bev? Despite nearly being attacked by a murderous clown and having him carve words into my flesh and torment me and my friends for years, I... I don’t know. I guess I just finally feel like I’m home at last.”

**Author's Note:**

> This is not my first IT fic, but I just watched the movie for the first time, and I realized that my last fic was wrong because it involved the gross paper boat he got back from Pennywise, but he burned that during the ritual of Chud, and I didn't know that at all?? Like, I googled it and everything, and I couldn't find anything about it. But anyway, I don't know how to fix it now because it's already in the fic and there's so many things based on it, but oh well!!! Sorry about that!!


End file.
